Steve Thimsen

Steve started having interest in aviation at a young age, which was further encouraged and refined after a middle school trip to a JAARS open house day, in Waxhaw, NC. From that time, a passion for missionary aviation started to grow. After 5 short-term trips to El Salvador to assist in church construction and local outreach in late middle school and throughout high school, a global perspective of peoples' needs began to form.

After high school, he attended Moody Bible Institute in Chicago for one year, then a further four years to complete the five-year B.S. in Missionary Aviation Technology degree program at Moody Aviation in Spokane, WA, as a pilot and mechanic.

After a one-year break from aviation to go back to NC to marry his high school sweetheart and work for his local church in facility maintenance, he returned to Moody Aviation in Spokane, on-loan from Proclaim Aviation Ministries. A three-year commitment turned into much more as he worked for the first year and a half as an aircraft maintenance technician, leading and teaching inspections with small groups of students. From this experience, he learned that he enjoyed teaching, process management, records, and technical writing.

After a series of health issues left him uncertain about his future in flying, he was asked to lead a project to bring A&P training back in-house to Moody Aviation. Through the hard work of the entire team, generous funding from a key donor, and God's clear moving of mountains, the first A&P class of Moody students in Spokane started classes in the FAA-approved Part 147 school in March 2012.

Soon after, Steve was officially hired by Moody and took on oversight of the complete maintenance training program (which includes the A&P school, post-A&P maintenance coursework for flight majors, and post-A&P coursework for maintenance specialist majors), allowing him to leverage areas of gifting and passion in training the next generation of missionary pilots and mechanics.